


Simon's Hospital

by LadyHallen



Series: Sanctuary [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen, Worldbuilding, feel good fic, flangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27695635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyHallen/pseuds/LadyHallen
Summary: Simon graduates from the Sanctuary and proceeds to make his way into the world.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Original Characters, Tom Riddle & Original Characters
Series: Sanctuary [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998565
Comments: 36
Kudos: 406





	Simon's Hospital

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a worldbuilding fluff fic. Welp.

Simon could sometimes see it in people. 

It was somewhat of a mark that the Sanctuary left on the children. That ability to see the truly desperate and the needy. After all, when you see it everyday for years while living in one place, you start to recognize it. 

Maybe that’s why he opened it, his hospital. 

Located in the Lower Alleys, Simon made it a point to treat anyone who asked for help, even if they couldn’t pay. 

It was incredibly difficult, but he managed. Master Harry gave him tips on how to manage it, even when he probably didn’t mean to. Master Harry was an example simply by existing. 

Simon bought the land with funds he asked from the Blood Bar. Then, with just his magic and his own common sense, Simon made himself an hospital, a house, a potions lab and a greenhouse all in one building. 

It probably wouldn’t have been possible for non-Sanctuary people, but Simon had seen Master Harry warp space with just a flick of his wand and control the weather. He knew the spells for it, he just needed the experience and the magic. 

With his greenhouse, he grew food and magical plants for potions making. In his house, he had an expanded garden for raising a few animals. He knew, from growing up in the Sanctuary, how incredibly important goats and chickens were. Chickens for the eggs and goats for the milk. Meat he could ask for from Sarah’s Kitchen. Clothes from Amelie. And everything else from Tom’s Bar. 

But that first month, Simon was alone. 

Used to living with at least fifty children around him, he almost couldn’t sleep, or bear the loneliness. 

And then Margaret arrived, fresh from the Sanctuary and asking for a place to stay because she recently turned seventeen and her master didn’t have a place for her to sleep. Behind her was Master Harry looking incredibly unhappy. 

Simon almost ran to hug the old wizard. 

He had been one of the few who had stayed with Master Harry for ten years. He had _missed_ him. 

“Master Harry!” he cried. 

The old wizard smiled at him, that smile where you somehow felt like you were the most important person in the whole world. “Simon, you look well!” he said. 

Simon fought a pleased blush. 

Margaret stomped over and hugged him just as hard. “Simon, you look pale. Have you been overworking?” 

Simon stomped on her foot. It was one thing to know he was overworking, and another thing to say it in front of Master Harry. 

Margaret yelped, pulling away from him with a scowl. 

Master Harry, still a foot shorter than him since he hit his growth spurt, patted him on the head, stopping the brewing argument. 

“I can look around and help?” the old wizard asked. “You can settle dear Margaret in.” 

Simon blushed a dark red. “Uhm. About that…” 

Simon had tried to expand and the whole place almost collapsed on him. He really was better with weather and healing spells than the undetectable extension charm. 

Master Harry nodded, then asked Simon for what he wanted. 

“Since the children aren’t expecting me back until late, I can go around and help,” he explained. 

Simon was so relieved that he didn’t ask, just pointing where and what he wanted expanded and by how much. 

With Master Harry’s help, they expanded to add five more rooms – in case several more people needed a place to stay – a laundry area, a pantry and ten extra rooms that Simon didn’t know what to do with but that Master Harry assured him he would probably need later. 

“It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and to not have it later,” Master Harry explained. “Meanwhile, you can use it for storage. Merlin knows, you need a place to store your potions.” 

Margaret got settled a few rooms away from his and Master Harry left, green eyes kind as he patted both of the on the head. 

They both watched him leave with a sigh. They missed him, and he hadn’t aged at all. At some point, they knew that the Sanctuary had been around for a while, what with the Network filled with old witches and wizards that knew Master Harry as children. But it was one thing to know…and another thing to _know_. 

“Maybe that’s why he doesn’t leave often,” Margaret murmured, thinking the same thing. “Because he’d _see_ and it’d make him sad.” 

Simon clenched his jaw and turned away, determined not to waste the day. And to stop thinking of old Master Harry who was eternally young and alone. 

.

* * *

. 

Simon’s first patients were the old and the infirm, the ones people wouldn’t miss. 

Simon was aware enough of the implications and pursed his lips. He didn’t say anything but just treated them. Arthritis, back pain and headaches. Purely basic things. One had bad teeth that only took Simon one potion to fix. A strangely rare potion that Simon didn’t usually find in apothecaries. 

After the success of the old people, Simon’s patients started arriving in droves. 

It was enough to overwhelm a person, but someone had to do it. 

Simon set up a triage area, and some of the street kids knew enough to help, putting those who needed help in one area and those who could wait in another and those who just needed a salve and a potion in another. 

Simon could probably use five more people, but what he had were just himself, and occasionally, Margaret when she had a day-off. 

He worked himself to the bone in the morning helping people, and brewed a lakes worth of potions to refill what he used at night. Then, before going to bed, he’d check his greenhouse and go back to bed near dawn. 

It was back breaking work and Simon at one point passed out in his kitchen only to wake up tucked in bed by Margaret. 

At around the third month of Simon’s practice, Tom visited and scolded him. The younger boy was charismatic and smart but he was also very driven. 

“The kids around here,” Tom said, looking at the bustling hospital with just one functioning healer and no nurses. “They help out. I can fund Amelie some more animals and she can give them food. Let the kids be your nurses so you can actually eat lunch like a normal human.” 

Simon was tired enough to sass Tom. “Can you arrange that then, oh great overlord? My hands are full.” 

Tom smirked at him, the brat. Just because he was the one funding the Network and making it work didn’t mean Simon couldn’t tease him. It was older child privilege. 

“Of course, I’ll take care of it, oh wise one,” Tom sassed back. “Take a breather while I fix your triage area.” 

Simon ate lunch and watched Tom cast a spell that gave the sick people armbands. Red for Emergency, Yellow for Injured but can wait for a few minutes, Orange for Sick but manageable and Green for Healthy. 

Simon had to swallow in a hurry. “Excuse me, did you just invent a diagnostic charm for triage?” he asked with some outrage. _He_ was the doctor here. Simon watched. Tom just invented that just by watching Simon work. 

“Never mind that,” Tom said, waving it away like he hadn’t just done spell invention right in front of Simon. “You have an orange armband. You’re sick, Si?” 

“Headache,” Simon answered. “It’s going away since I ate. But. What the fuck, brat. I thought only Master Harry broke magical rules.” 

Tom just laughed at him and Simon hated him. Magical prodigies were awful. 

.

* * *

. 

Tom did arrange it and Amelie suddenly appeared in the peripheral parts of his life. 

She had a child drop off a basket of food that was enough to feed an army every two days. It was meat soup. 

Simon, child of the Sanctuary, melted. Meat soup was special to all children of the Sanctuary, given that it was the only food that was there all the time. 

Street kids, five of them, showed up. The oldest was a twelve-year-old squib. Simon looked at their eyes and recognized the look in it. Two squibs, one at twelve and one at eight. The rest were magical children that hadn’t found their way to the Sanctuary yet. 

Simon dithered, looking at them. Should he send them to Master Harry? 

He remembered warm nights by the fire and storytelling. But he also remembered how absolutely swamped Master Harry was. 

Simon could help, so he would. 

“Do you have a place to stay?” he asked. 

They shook their heads. They looked immensely wary. 

“I have room, but...I also have so much work. A place to stay and food? Help me out please?” he asked. It was incredibly awkward. Merlin’s beard, how did Master Harry get children to help? 

The eldest child nodded. “Tom already told us everything,” she said. “He said you need all the help you can get.” 

Well, that’s how Simon wouldn’t have put it. Tom Riddle was an awful brat.

.

* * *

. 

He settled them in the house. 

The front of the building was, of course, the hospital, but hidden at the very back, on a door marked ‘Disposal of Contaminated Materials’, was the entrance for the house. 

The children all gasped and looked awed. Simon didn’t want to break it to them that what he managed in his Hospital wasn’t much compared to what Master Harry did to his Sanctuary or what Tom did to his Bar. 

“Kitchen,” he gestured to the first room. He led them to the door marked pantry at the side and twisted the door knob in that special wiggle and lead them to his special pasture, where he kept any and all animals he got. Goats, chickens and the recent acquisition of a sow. She was already pregnant. Ah, he couldn’t wait to have meat too. 

“Oh my god,” one of the kids breathed. “What the hell.” 

“Pasture,” he introduced rather unnecessarily. “And I have to keep these fella’s clean. They provide us with milk, eggs and meat.” 

He ushered them out, and showed them the dining room with the roaring fireplace. He pushed them up the stairs to the rooms and then showed them the greenhouse hidden in one room labelled Miscellaneous. 

“Greenhouse,” he announced, pointing to the enormous farm of vegetables and magical plants. 

Simon was rather proud of his skill with weather charms. So proud, in fact, that he probably went overboard in creating his greenhouse. His farm didn’t even stick to one season or to one temperature. 

Tom, taking one look at it, had called him a showoff. Amelie had outright asked for some of his help in her vegetable garden as well. 

“So, can you help me out?” he asked them. “I need help with the house and the hospital.” 

“Of course,” one of the kids said. The youngest burst out crying. 

Simon felt a little overwhelmed at the looks of gratitude he was getting. 

.

* * *

. 

Alice, Siobhan and Michael to help him in the hospital. Isaac to take care of the animals and George to take care of everything else. 

They were children and Simon felt terrible for taking advantage of them. But Alice reassured him about it, probably seeing his guilt. 

“We’re squibs, me and Siobhan. Mikee and the rest are pureblood bastards. If, by some chance, they survive until eleven years old, they still can’t get into Hogwarts. Their pureblooded parents didn’t put their name in the Book of Names.” 

No magic, no knowledge of how to use magic…certain death in a society that let children fall through the cracks. 

That’s why Master Harry was important…and that was why Simon and the Network also needed to help. 

“If it’s too much,” Simon told her. “Tell me. Because while I’m here, there are also dozens of us doing our best. And if that fails, there is always Master Harry.” 

The children loved Simon and that just blew Simon’s mind. Because they didn’t know Master Harry. Children in need didn’t know Master Harry. 

Simon realized this and had to sit down in a hurry. 

For the first time, Simon didn’t immediately go to the house and brew potions. He went to the Bar and looked for everyone and anyone he could share a drink with.

.

* * *

. 

The Bar had five faces. 

If Simon’s Hospital had two Faces, the Bar had five.

The first one you would see would be the Blood Bar, crowded with vampires and creepy people. Simon hated that Face, and he hurried to the back, where the Doorway was. 

One face for the Bar, the second for a sleeping place for homeless and runaway children, the third was a massive and incredible storage for various and miscellaneous items, the fourth was Tom’s house – which had crazy dimensions all by itself – and the last was the office of the Network. 

The office was where he hurried to, one special twist of the doorknob and he entered the office. Simon made a beeline for the open bar. 

“Fuck, I need a drink,” he sighed. “But I shouldn’t.” 

Tom, who rarely left the Bar, drew him a drink and plunked a potion right beside him. “Drink the potion later. You look like you need it, Si.” 

Simon downed the shot. “I just. The kids. Don’t know Master Harry. And. That’s messed up.” 

Master Harry had been such a formative person for more than a hundred children for several generations. That there was a group of children that didn’t know Master Harry just. Made Simon want to get drunk and cry for a long time. 

Tom sat down beside him and thunked one bottle beside him. It was whisky, the expensive kind. 

“Yeah, that was exactly my reaction,” Tom said. “But that’s a good thing, Si. That means that a lot more are helping so that Master Harry isn’t needed so much anymore.” 

Simon drank another shot to swallow down the words, ‘ _But if Master Harry isn’t needed anymore, does that mean he would cease to exist?’_

“Master Harry is going to be fine,” Tom prodded him, sipping his own fire whisky. “As long as the Sanctuary exists, then Master Harry will be alive.” 

Simon put down the shot glass and proceeded to cry. In relief or sadness, he doesn’t know. 

**Author's Note:**

> I made myself cry writing this fic.
> 
> Comments please, I need to make myself feel better.


End file.
